He wasn’t keeping their past from her. But, on the other claw, he was also trying to keep her safe. The Hurlians were still trying to find him and they’d vowed to kill him and his mate. He knew exactly what the Hurlians were doing to track him down—they were sending bots to scan the vid channels for any sign or mention of him. They were also lurking in the dark channels for any sign of his whereabouts, so even the most secure and coded messages could be intercepted. This is why he was in contact with no one beyond the Swirl. And the moment the Hurlians found them they’d send a flood of soldiers in to slaughter Kroga and his Bride. The danger was very real.
What if her memories had returned and she didn’t believe in his innocence and tried to contact the outside world? That would be the moment the Hurlians would finally track down their location and send troops. Despite the fact that they were in the Swirl, if the Hurlians wanted him enough, and sent enough ships, they could easily kill Kroga and his mate.
He needed to help her to see the truth and the danger they were in, but he couldn’t yet determine what to tell his Bride. But one thing was certain, he needed to first make sure she was healthy. She had sustained a very significant head injury on their journey to the Swirl. He’d already tried to tell her bits of the past, but she didn’t seem to remember. She kept asking him to repeat information. Her neurological processes needed to be checked often. He’d lost his Bride once, he wasn’t losing her again.
“Let’s go,” he insisted and grabbed her claw. “I want you to go to the med bay with me right now so we can scan your brain and confirm your health.”
“Again?” She exhaled. “Okay.”
He guided his Bride off the bridge and they entered the med bay. She lay down on one of the two beds and a wand ran over her form. “Melachine of Eighteen is cleared for duty,” the computer announced. “Neurological processes are one hundred percent.”
“One hundred percent?” He threw her an accusing stare.
She put her palms up. “I don’t remember anything though.”
He exhaled. She was lying to him. It was obvious because Xylan did not lie and mates did not lie to each other. He could literally smell the lie on her skin. Why would she even try?
Was his Bride that afraid of him?
“Be’Ih, you don’t need to lie to me.”
“I’m not lying,” she exclaimed with the fakest tone ever to come out of her mouth in all their years together. Melachine would only do this if she thought lives were in danger. Did she think he might kill her, or their offspring? Protecting her offspring would cause Melachine to break the honor code. It was the only reason.
“Why are you lying to me?” he asked. “Tell me so I can allay your fears.”
“I’m not lying,” she repeated.
He shook his head and ran his claws through his braids. “I will accept your false response, for now. But I am not leaving to continue my work outside while my female is obviously unwell.”
Her eyes widened. “I am fine. You can go outside and back to work. I can return to the bridge, alone.”
“I bet you’d like that,” he muttered. And then fear began to bleed into his hearts. If she had her memory back and she was terrified of him, the first thing she’d try to do was get a message to his sons. “Computer, show me all outgoing messages from this facility in the last diurnal.”
She sat up. “What are you doing?” she asked sharply. “Why would you check my correspondence?”
The computer popped up a vid screen in front of them showing all messages, including the last one from Megan on section fifteen. He carefully scanned the list while his Bride quietly sat on the bed, fidgeting with the hem of her tunic. “There isn’t anything here except messages to verified customers or Megan on section fifteen.”
“Of course there isn’t. Who else would I talk to? Why are you checking? This is silly.”
He turned toward her. “We can’t let anyone know where we are, I’ve told you this before but you never remembered. Now that your brain is healed I can finally give you this important information and it will stay with you.”
She cocked her head to the side. “Why can’t we let anyone know where we are?”
“Because our enemies are trying to find us and when they do, they will try to kill us. They are watching all communication, waiting for any mention of us to ping on the net.”
“Who is coming to try and hurt us?”
“The Hurlians.”
She sat up on the edge of the bed and gave him an assessing look. “The Hurlians? And why would they be after us?”
He stared at her again, unsure how much to say. Were her memories really returned? Or were they partial and he would hurt her with an overload? Damn it all to the fires of eternity. He couldn’t keep giving his Bride partial information, it literally made him sick. Because her brain was now one hundred percent healed, now was the time to try again to tell her everything. “The Hurlians are trying to find me to kill me. They’ve vowed to kill the both of us. They want to end me and my Bride too.”
“Why do the Hurlians want you dead?”
“The Hurlians want me dead because I was their mind-controlled spy for the last fourteen planetary rotations, but now I am free and therefore a security risk. If I reached the Xylan High Command and told them all I know it would be a major blow to Hurlian security. They are going to kill you first in front of me, to cause me the most pain, and then they will kill me too.”
She stared at him in shock. “This is why we are out here? Because you are a spy for the Hurlians and you ran away from them and they want to kill you? You think they won’t find you out here?”
He nodded. “I was their spy. I’m no longer in their control. According to my calculations this is the only place where we can remain in hiding and safe. They will never find us here. All of your contact with the outside world has been through voice modified audio or textual messages. No one knows we are here except for a few Cyclers in the Swirl who are also Xylan and who I trust.”
She paused for a moment, then her eyes widened. “We can never leave?”
“No, we can never go back, or see anyone, or communicate with anyone, ever. This is the only way to keep you safe.”
“What about our offspring?” she choked.
He clenched his claws. “We can never contact them either, for their safety as well as ours.” Wait. She knew of their offspring? “Your memories are returning?”
“Some of them,” she hedged. “I remember our boys, Rayzor and Kayzon.”
His sons…a stab of pain continued to flare in his chest at the thought of how his actions had pushed them away and caused them so much pain. “If we contact them, the Hurlians will know where we are. They will be at risk and so will we.”
She nodded, her eyes wet and she turned away. His answers did not seem to appease her. It did not appease him either. He wanted desperately to find out about his sons. But his Bride had no information to share with him. And he was also unable to contact them. Plus, there was the added complication that they probably hated him.
His own sons had to hate him, as did his entire species and most beings in the four sectors. He was the most wanted being in the universe. The Hurlians had done this to him, and he still saw no way out.
“Melachine—”
“Don’t touch me,” she growled. She turned to glare at him with eyes blazing with hatred. Finally, she was telling him the truth. “I remember it all…I remember everything and I know your lies. Nothing is the same now. Nothing.”
6
They didn’t talk to each other for two whole diurnals.
Productivity was down.
Melachine moved out of their quarters and slept with the kittens in the empty room down the hallway. It was awful. She kept the door locked at night for her own safety.
Kroga was livid that she didn’t believe him when he’d offered excuses about being under Hurlian mind control. And she was sickened to be left alone in this facility with a known murderer and a lyin
g mate.
By the third diurnal she’d had enough of this mutual silent treatment. If this was going to be her future, it was no future at all. She had to get out of there, even if it meant accepting that she would be living out the rest of her life in the Swirl, but on a different section. This was better than living with a criminal mastermind. At first, she’d thought she needed to stay close to him in order to find out what his plans were, but now she was just desperate to get away.
“I’m leaving,” she announced the next morning.
His jaw clenched. “You cannot leave the Swirl,” he reminded her, “the mortality rate during return travel is fifty to sixty percent. I don’t know what personal flier you think you’re going to use, but you can’t go that route because it could very well mean death, especially if you are trying to navigate on your own. And you can’t use the transporter either, it will kill you.”
“You think you’ve got it all figured out, don’t you? You brought me here so I can never leave and you think I’m stuck with you, but I’m not. I am going to ask Megan if I can live with them, or with the Xylan living on section thirteen. I’m certain they will allow me to move into one of their sections without question. I’m taking the kittens with me and we’re leaving you.”
He slammed a fist on the counter. “You will not leave.”
“I will.”
“You will stay with me so that I can visually confirm your safety and your happiness.”
“I cannot believe those words are coming out of your mouth. You could care less about my happiness. You just want to keep me safe so you have a mate to fuck and keep by your side to scent.”
He dropped his chin to his chest. “You have to listen to me,” he rasped. “It wasn’t me. They used me.”
“There was a truth lock seal on the vid that showed you giving state secrets to Hurlian intelligence officers.”
He shook his head in denial.
The more she thought about all of Kroga’s deceptions, and the fact that he’d said he was still working with the Hurlians until recently and they were after their rogue agent—the more she regretted her impetuous decision to request Kayzon’s help. When she’d sent that message she’d been frantic. She’d just recovered and the memories had flooded her mind and Kroga was pounding on the door. But now that she’d had time to calm down, she knew that sending that message had been wrong.
How could any of her three sons arrive here to help her without themselves getting hurt or killed? What if they were caught in the middle of Kroga’s violent dealings with the Hurlians? The odds were impossible. She needed to convince them to stay away.
She hadn’t even been able to check her messages because Kroga was monitoring the comm system and personally checking if she was making an outgoing message. But, she’d also been quietly hacking the computer, finding a work-around. And she was almost at a place where she could at least quietly access the Bounty Hunter Leaderboards and check for a coded message back from Kayzon and hopefully send back a reply telling him not to attempt to come here.
Today she was breaking free of this place and getting away from this controlling asshole. She’d accepted the fact that for now she was staying here in the Swirl, but that didn’t mean she had to remain on section five. If she lived somewhere else, at the very least she could keep in contact with her family and friends, even from a distance. And she could also alert the High Command to the whereabouts of Kroga of Seventy-Five.
He moved toward her. “Melachine. Let me explain.”
She put her claws up. “No, don’t come close.” A growl rumbled in her chest and she bared her fangs. She was ready to attack him. She wasn’t as strong as Kroga, but she could still do him damage. “Did you cause my amnesia?”
“No,” he bellowed. “I would never do that to my Bride. You were hurt.”
“Well, it’s very convenient that you kidnaped me and brought me here and then I lose all memory of your treacherous past.”
“This wasn’t a good thing. I’ve been living with a ticking time bomb. I wasn’t sure how much to tell you or not. Your neurological state was fragile.”
“You certainly felt I was strong enough to mate.”
A flush crept along his cheeks. He looked away, then back at her. “I hadn’t seen you or touched you for fourteen years,” he rasped. “It’s true that I’ve been obsessed with reconnecting with your body and your scent. You think this was easy for me? I have been living with a mate who has no memory of her past. You do not remember our offspring. I have not seen our sons in over fourteen years. I wanted to speak to you about them, to learn how they were, but I couldn’t. And I almost lost you on our journey here.”
“Why would you take me to the Swirl knowing we could die on the journey here?”
“Because I was that desperate. I found out that the Hurlians weren’t through with me. They planned on killing me. But to make sure that no one ever found anything out, they planned on killing my mate too. I brought you here because I felt if you were out in the four sectors you would certainly die at the hands of my enemies, but if I brought you to the Swirl there was at least a fifty percent chance of your survival.”
“Why would they kill me? I had nothing to do with this.”
“You have a bond with me. You are the one who finally pulled me out of this mind control. When I arrived at the cargo bay of the Hunter ship and you touched me and your smell entered my lungs—my mind cleared completely for the final time. I’d already been having moments of lucidity prior to that because their mind control had begun to crack. But I only had seconds to react. The Hurlians monitored my every movement. I grabbed you and left. We went to my personal flier I’d used to transport over alone. I strapped you into a safety seat on the bridge. And then I calculated that our only way out was to hide in the Swirl. During these last fourteen years, whenever I was myself and confined to my cell, brooding about my escape, I always knew this was what I’d do. I’d take you with me to start our lives over in the Swirl. I’d planned to take our sons too, if I could also bring them along. But in this instance, I was unable.”
“I don’t believe any of this.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because you have been mating with me this whole time under false pretenses. And because I cannot believe that all of this was simply mind control. You said yourself there were times of lucidity. How much do I know was you and wasn’t you? Were you the male who committed treason? But you weren’t the male who worked undercover for the Hurlians as the warden of that prison? I do not know who I have with me right now. I cannot trust you.”
“I haven’t lied to you my whole life.”
“You lied to me by not telling me the whole truth of our past.”
“I tried—”
“You didn’t try hard enough, because it was convenient for you to keep me in the dark. And also, because you don’t care about your own offspring.”
He sucked in a sharp breath. “You charge me of such a thing?”
“You don’t give a shit about any of us, you only care about yourself. Remember how when I saw you on the cargo bay I stepped up and punched you in the face? Well, that’s how I felt about you and how I feel now. You do not know or understand all the pain I’ve been put through these last fourteen years. Fourteen years.”
“And you don’t understand what I’ve been through when—”
A siren began blaring. “Intruders are manually overriding the transporter lock,” the computer announced. “Estimated arrival in two minutes.”
Kroga grabbed his Bride’s claw and they raced down the hall together to their makeshift Cabul. They each grabbed a personal blade and a blaster and still managed to make it to the transporter room in time before any being arrived.
“Stand behind me,” he growled at her.
“But Kroga—”
He turned to tag his beautiful Bride with an intense stare, gazing into her sparkling hazel eyes perhaps for the last time. He was going to give his honor, his life, before hers.
“Stand back,” he repeated. “The Hurlians have found us. I will take first position.”
“That’s what you think this is? We don’t know who is coming in on that disk; it could be anyone and we have to be ready, but, Kroga, there’s something you don’t understand. I really don’t think the intruders are Hurlians here for a meetup with their rogue agent. I think it’s more likely to do with the secret coded message I sent to our sons…”
He rocked back on his heels. “You did what?”
Light began to materialize on a disk and the transporter began to hum.
“I know, I know. I wish I hadn’t done that because now I’m terrified about what could possibly happen to them if they tried to come here. But I can’t take back what I did and—”
Atoms began to coalesce. Kroga and his Bride turned to silently stare at what was arriving. He held his blaster up, ready for what may come. A shape formed and finally a being stood before them. It turned to stare at them with watery eyes and squeaked with fear. It appeared male with yellow hair on its head; tall, thin and freakishly colorless. It was dressed in simple work clothing and carried no weapons. The being looked very human-like except for the two large feathered colorless wings that curved from its back.
It did not appear ready for battle.
“Who the hell are you?” Kroga shouted, using formal Xylan and not giving a damn if he was understood or not.
The being hissed and cowered. It took two steps back and slipped on the step and crashed onto the floor of the cargo bay, its wings sprawled out for support.
Kroga let out a snort of disgust, lowered his blaster and met his Bride’s gaze. “Who is this being?” he demanded.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not even sure what species this creature is. He looks harmless though.”
Three other disks lit up and began to hum, signaling the speedy arrival of more intruders.
“How are these beings getting through?” Kroga raged. “This transporter is industrial grade and locked. How is this happening?” He raced over to the console and his eyes widened as he scanned the screens. Somehow every single system had been overridden. “This is impossible,” he muttered.
The Alien Bounty Hunters Complete Series: Books 1-8 Page 77
